Dr. Ahmed was born and raised in the land of Pyramids, Egypt. He obtained his B.E. and M.S. degrees from Shoubra Faculty of Engineering, Benha University and Faculty of Engineering, Ain-Shams University, respectively. He moved to Caltech in 2015 as a graduate student and received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Engineering and Applied Science from Caltech. For his PhD, he joined Prof. Jamie Bock’s CMB group to work on BICEP Array telescope. BICEP Array represents the current stage in the BICEP/Keck experiments to map the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) with unprecedented sensitivity levels. His Ph.D. thesis focused on the development of high sensitivity detectors and instrumentation in order to constrain the Primordial Gravitational Waves, the sign of inflation after the Big Bang that would imprint a B-mode polarization pattern on the CMB. The detection of a B-mode pattern would open a new window to probe the energy scale at the beginning of time when the universe was a mere fraction of a second old after the Big Bang. Ahmed and his team members have successfully deployed the first low frequency receiver at the South Pole during 2020 austral season and has been collecting CMB data which is being currently analyzed.
Ahmed is a postdoctoral researcher at Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He extends his Ph.D. work on the technology development to further unveil the secrets about the universe, and the resulting science investigation.
For more information, please visit: https://asoliman.people.caltech.edu/
- Ph.D. in Engineering and Applied Science, California Institute of Technology, 2023
- M.S. in Electrical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, 2017
- M. S. in Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Ain shams University, Cairo, Egypt, 2014
- B.E. in Electrical and Communication Engineering, Shoubra Faculty of Engineering, Benha University, Cairo, Egypt, 2009
- Inflation, superconducting detectors, cryogenic instrumentation.
- Cosmic Microwave Background, microwave radiometry, remote sensing.
- Postdoctoral Fellow, JPL, 2023-present
- Visiting Researcher, Caltech, 2023-present
- Visiting Graduate Researcher, MIT Haystack Observatory, 2016
- Graduate Researcher, Caltech, 2015-2023
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Postdoctoral Fellowship NASA/ Caltech, 2023.
- Caltech Everhart Distinguished PhD Graduate Lecture Series, 2023.
- The Antarctica Service Medal of the United States of America 2020, Awarded by the National Science Foundation and Department of Defense in recognition of valuable contributions to exploration and scientific achievement under the U.S. Antarctic program, for BICAP Array receiver deployment to the South Pole.
- The National Science Foundation Award for two projects (as contributor): 1) Collaborative Research: Imaging the Beginning of Time from the South Pole: The next Stage of the BICEP Program, and 2) MRI: Development of a 150 GHz Receiver for the BICEP Array CMB Polarimeter.
- The Second Prize for the Best Student Paper Award, IEEE Asia Pacific Radio Science Conference, South Korea, 2016.
- Caltech Graduate Research Assistantship, 2017.
- Caltech Graduate Master Scholarship, 2015.
- The BICEP/Keck Collaboration (including A. Soliman) "BICEP / Keck XVI: Characterizing Dust Polarization through Correlations with Neutral Hydrogen," The Astrophysical Journal, 2023.
- A. Soliman for the BICEP/Keck Collaboration "2022 Upgrade and Improved Low Frequency Camera Sensitivity for CMB Observation at the South Pole," Proceedings of the Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far- Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy, International Society for Optics and Photonics, SPIE, (2022).
- The BICEP/Keck (including A. Soliman) "Bicep/Keck XV: The Bicep3 cosmic microwave background polarimeter and the first three-year data set" The Astrophysical Journal, 2022.
- BICEP2 and Keck Array Collaboration (including A. Soliman) "Improved Constraints on Primordial Gravitational Waves using Planck, WMAP, and BICEP/Keck Observations through the 2018 Observing Season", Physics Review Letters, 2021.
- The BICEP/Keck (including A. Soliman) and SPTpol Collaborations "A Demonstration of Improved Constraints on Primordial Gravitational Waves with Delensing", Physics Review D, 2020.
- A. Soliman and the BICEP/Keck Collaboration "Optical Design and Characterization of 40-GHz Detector and Module for the BICEP Array" Journal of Low Temperature Physics, 2020.
- BICEP/Keck Array Collaboration (including A. Soliman) "Constraints on axion-like polarization oscillations in the cosmic microwave background" Physical Review D, 2020.
- BICEP/Keck Array Collaboration (including A. Soliman), "Constraints on Primordial Gravitational Waves Using Planck, WMAP, and New BICEP2/Keck Observations through the 2015 Season," Physical review letters, 2020.
- BICEP/Keck Array Collaboration (including A. Soliman) "BICEP2/Keck Array XI: Beam Characterization and Temperature-to- Polarization Leakage in the BK15 Data Set," The Astrophysical Journal, v.884, 2019.
- A. Soliman, P.A.R. Ade, Z. Ahmed, et al (BICEP/Keck Collaboration), "Design and performance of single/wide band corrugated walls for the bicep array detector modules at 30/40 GHz," Proceedings of the Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far- Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy, International Society for Optics and Photonics, SPIE, (2018).
